Comments

Comment by Rigors

This spell was recently changed to be affected by the global cooldown, which made it more difficult to use as a snap reflex type spell, but when used correctly, it is still devastating to lock down a spell tree for 10 seconds.

Comment by Kyana

As of 2.0.6; "Counterspell no longer triggers the global cooldown."

Comment by Tehsteve

There seems to be a lot of mages that don't fully understand this ability, so allow me to enlighten you. It's a disrupting ability, allowing you to prevent an enemy from casting a school of magic. However, it requires certain parameters to work.1) Enemy must be a caster2) enemy must be casting/channeling a spell

It's as simple as that. When you either see a spell-bar or the enemy's hands go all glowy, hit them with counterspell. It's one of the best PVP abilities available and is pretty useful in a PVE environment against powerful enemies.If you get it specced it'll also silence the enemy for 4 seconds.

Comment by Ilovemage

Be carefull when using this, if you leave it too late just as the enemy finishing casting it won't affect it

Comment by Aikida

It isn't. A warlock with a felhunter out can interrupt without using their GCD

Comment by Archangel

Counterspell a warrior, put him in combat to stop him charging..

Don't forget, warrior shouts are considered spell, so If you have Improved Counterspell, he will be silenced and unable to cast that damn Piercing Howl.

Comment by Elethor

Also worth noting in case no one knows. If you spec for improved CS you will NOT retain the original effect. Example: Another mage is casting pyroblast and you CS him mid-cast. Instead of him being unable to use fire for the full 8 seconds he will have full access to all his spells after only 4.

Comment by Taemojitsu

Mages were the only class with a spell interrupt that HAD to keep spamming the GCD to be effective. Rogues can wait for energy to regen while their autoattack interrupts a caster's spells. Warriors already spend much of their time building up rage or waiting for their autoattack timer, and so have significant amounts of time to use for interrupt-GCDs.

Mages have none of those, not even the DoTs of a warlock or priest. A mage who is not continuously using her abilities is a mage at zero effectiveness, and with CS on the GCD that presented mages with two problems:

1) if you used an instant, your CS was locked out for 1.5 seconds. With no autoattack, this made it literally impossible to interrupt a 1.5 sec cast that had started but hadn't yet reached your comp. You would press fireblast, the server would register that a priest had begun to cast Flash Heal, your fireblast would push the timer on Flash Heal back to 0 sec... and then it would finish casting at the same time as CS became available again.

2) even when using a casted spell of your own, you were subjected to double or triple latency when trying to use CS (this was before the move to server-side checks on casting). If you began a cast, saw someone casting a spell, and immediately cancelled your cast at 0.05 sec in on your screen, you might have to still wait 100-300+ ms for your cancellation to reach the server, then another 100-300+ ms for the server's acknowledgement to clear your GCD.. and then ANOTHER 100-300+ ms on top of that after you'd pressed CS for the server to register the new cast and attempt to interrupt your target's spell. For players with bad or spikey lag (like those who play from Australia), this made CS extremely unwielding and almost impossible to use as a reactive ability, the way it was originally designed.

So that's why the 2.0 change to CS got reverted in 2.0.6... the devs realized that 'consistency' was not worth destroying an entire class.

Comment by yiyon

can you counterspell a hunter's aimed shot?

Comment by Flameenix

I personally enjoy the fact that it can be casted when you're not facing the target, which makes it very useful as an escape tool as apposed to turning around, and most of all, you interrupt a heal or an incoming attack even when you can't see where the damn caster is!

Definately one of the top mage utilities, and it's fairly sad to see that many mages don't use this until later levels. :(

Comment by Enquillion

Monsters don't believe in spell schools. When you interrupt a monster, you only put that specific spell on cooldown. For example, Counterspell Holy Smite, and the monster might just heal itself the next second. (yes, with a holy spell)

edit: while on the PvE part of this spell, the threat mentioned in the tooltip is abysmally low.

Comment by Flameenix

To spec this into Improved Counterspell , you must spend either 16 or 17 points on the Arcane tree, (16 for 2 second naked silence, 17 for 4 second naked silence).

Comment by Flameenix

I actually read this and tried it in 2 v 2 arena recently, worked a treat to prevent that first charge, it always seems to confuse the warrior because Counterspell isn't much of a visible spell, giving me enough time to start off with a fat-ass shatter combo. :D

So yeah, many uses indeed. :)

(In response to Case, defending counterspell as an ability used against even melee classes.)

Comment by thegooglegeek

For mages fighting warrs, it is very useful to counterspell a warr as soon as they are in range, as it enters them into combat and prevents them from charging, giving you that few extra secs to cast or poly them, and starving them of their rage gained from charge.

Comment by Toothun

And mages say they are underpowered ....

Atleast give it a proper cooldown.

Comment by Toothun

This is much better than kick.Kick requires melee range , gives no silence if PvP specced and only lasts 5 sec.

Edit: Supposed to be a reply to eizei

Comment by Sihd

I DON'T CARE IF YOU DOWNRATE THIS COMMENT, BUT THIS SPELL IS TO OVERPOWERED TOGETHER WITH EVERY OTHER SPELLS MAGES GETS IN FROST TREE!

It's not possible as a spellcaster to do anything in pvp when this !@#$'d mage counterspells your first spell, you can't remove the effect with trinkets, and you're as good as dead before the silence runs out.................!@#$ING MAGE SPELLS!

Comment by avattar

As a holy pally my opinion may be skewed, but i can think of a way to rework this spell to make every1(i think) a bit more happy.

When pvping with an enemy mage, i always have to be on the lookout. i know fakecasting works sometimes, but not always. and sometimes u dont have the luxery of faking, and just need to get the heal off or some1 is gonna die.

the biggest issue for me is the spell CD. the CS CD remains greater then any other player caster interrupt. in an arena situation with just about any mage, 8 second of literaly helpless time is fatal. i cant even bubble when i get this.

Heres my idea: change usage CD of this ability to something like 10 secs, but reduce the CD caused to something like 3 secs.

i think this is good for both me and the mage. for one, if the mage misses, then he wont in such great danger. if i am hit, then i wont be killed 100% of the time. and the biggest reason would be to provide mages a more mainstream interrupt for PvE situations.

I like the sound of that last idea when i think of times on the illidari council where our mage's CS was on CD, and lady whatsherface got a heal off when under gathios' BoP

Comment by Keelerak

its best to use on paladin, becase he knows only holy, so using this spell makes them totally silenced!

Comment by Norrinir

Comment by draygourn

counterspell a

priest : shadow - mostly render them useless, esp. if they are shadow in shadow form.priest : holy / disc : cs heal (or holy spells), and pew pewmage : not so devastating, as mage have a lot of Nuke/tools from 3 schoolswarlock : see him casting immolate? cs Immolate and lock him out of CB, Conf, (backdrafted) Inci... pew pewdotzers? = mage armor. pew pew.druid : mostly they use nature spells. cs any and enjoy your pew pew. shaman : also they use many nature spells. shocks are not that horrifying.pali : holy have only holy school I guess....

basically, if your cs not on cd, you should win against any casters!this spell alone make a WHOLE lot of difference.

Comment by Quest

This spell works best on disgruntled female gnome mages try'n to fire their fireball.

Comment by Deforj

Exept a balance druid will use wrath if you CC starfire and use moonfire+starfall if you CC'd wrath.Also locks will use chaosbolt and shadowbolt if you CC'ed Fire and use Immo+Conflag if you cc'ed shadow.

However, they might just fear you and wait for fire.

Comment by fezo

Not as easy as you think, pros know how to fake-cast, fooling mages into CSing while they r not casting.

Yet again, a pro mage should know when his enemy is gonna fake cast.

Comment by Doomedge

BOOM, COUNTERSPELL, JIMMY WASNT SPECCED FOR IMPROVE COUNTERSPELL.

Comment by Iwantcable

/cast Counterspell/s Yo, %t... I'm really happy for you, I'll let you finish... but Counterspell is one of the best spells of all time. One of the best spells of all time!

Comment by Dr00dboy

Here is a macro you will want to use with counterspell.

/stopcasting/cast counterspell

Very simple and it helps alot!

Comment by johannhowitzer

I am trying to use a macro to keep casting a different spell with the same button when the button's main spell is countered.

Examples:/cast Frostbolt/cast Arcane Missiles

/cast Ice Lance/cast Fire Blast

These aren't working - when frost school gets countered, the button does nothing. Is there a way I can fix this?

Comment by STARLyTER

Seems to also not be affected by diminishing returns..... got strangulated, then silenced by a priest, then instantly counterspelled after for the full duration.....

is it not supposed to be affected by DR? or is it like a FU button after your silenced for 10 seconds already

Comment by Frogger

Mages in arena are so overpowered with this nonsense. They can sheep your healer. only few sec cooldown, then they can use this with only 24 sec CD! i mean WTF

Comment by dreadblood

Mages in arena are so overpowered with this nonsense. They can sheep your healer. only few sec cooldown, then they can use this with only 24 sec CD! i mean WTF

and I suppose rogues are overpowered with their nearly permanent stuns? or hunters are overpowered with their traps? GET OVER YOURSELF!